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The Nature and Origin of Xenophanes' Representation of the Gods Is Fraught XENOPHANES, THE GODS, AND THE REINVENTION OF POETIC AUTHORITY Derek Heath Smith A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Classics. Chapel Hill 2007 Approved by: Advisor: Peter M. Smith Reader: William H. Race Reader: Brooke Holmes © 2007 Derek Heath Smith ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT DEREK SMITH: Xenophanes, the Gods, and the Reinvention of Poetic Authority (Under the direction of Peter Smith) This thesis explores the nature and authority of the theological comments made by Xenophanes of Colophon. In my first chapter I discuss the critical and positive fragments of Xenophanes’ work and attempt to both construct a consistent theological account and discover the methods by which he arrives at his conclusions. After adopting James Lesher’s position that Xenophanes is rejecting the possibility of divine communication, I explore the consequences of this radical pronouncement in my second chapter: if Xenophanes, unlike his poetic predecessors, does not have access to the gods through divine inspiration, how can he speak authoritatively about divine matters? In this chapter I begin by discussing the gods, truth, and authority in the works of Homer and Hesiod before analyzing these concepts in the fragments of Xenophanes. In my third chapter I attempt to pinpoint the significance of Xenophanes’ position by comparing his thoughts with those of two (roughly) contemporary poets, Parmenides and Pindar. iii To my mother who never stops calling. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project could not have been completed without the help and support of my friends, family, and mentors. I wish to thank my readers for their insight and advice, and in particular I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Smith and Dr. Race for their quick responses and thorough comments for the many drafts I submitted to them. I am indebted to my mother, Mary, my father, Fred, and his wife, Angelica, for their continued love and support. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I: GOD AND GODS IN XENOPHANES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW THEOLOGY..............................................................................................5 1.1 The Critical Fragments......................................................................................6 1.2 Xenophanes’ Positive Theology......................................................................13 1.3 Xenophanes the Inductive Thinker..................................................................21 1.4 Xenophanes, Deductive Argumentation, and the Doxographical Tradition.....................................................................30 CHAPTER II: POETIC REINVENTION: GODS, TRUTH, AND AUTHORITY FROM HOMER TO XENOPHANES...................................................................36 2.1 The Divine World of Homer............................................................................37 2.2 Divine Communication....................................................................................43 2.3 Poetic Truth and Authority..............................................................................45 2.4 Divine Deception and Poetic Persona in Hesiod.............................................60 2.5 Xenophanes......................................................................................................66 2.6 The World of Xenophanes...............................................................................67 2.7 Truth and Opinion in Xenophanes...................................................................70 2.8 Traditional and Intellectual Authority.............................................................79 CHAPTER III: CONTEMPORARY MODELS: THE POETRY OF PARMENIDES AND PINDAR..........................................................87 3.1 Parmenides.......................................................................................................88 3.2 Pindar.............................................................................................................101 vi REFERENCES................................................................................................................111 vii INTRODUCTION The poems of Xenophanes of Colophon, most of which remain in fragmentary form, are provocative and frustratingly obscure. He touches upon a variety of topics – including political advice, natural philosophy, theology, and epistemology – but often the context, source, and precise meaning of his ideas are unclear. The doxographical testimonia frequently further confuse matters by conflating the ideas of Xenophanes with those of later thinkers such as Parmenides and the Sceptics. Perhaps the most intriguing feature of Xenophanes’ work is his claim that there is “one god, greatest among gods and men” (B23).1 What precisely is this god and from where does Xenophanes derive this belief? I will begin this project in my first chapter by exploring this question. I will look at both the critical fragments (B10-B17), in which Xenophanes attacks the traditional conventions found in epic poetry and popular religion, and the constructive ones (B23- B26), in which he postulates the existence of one supreme god who remains stationary and moves all by the “mind of his mind” (νόου φρήν, B 25). I will argue that his rejection of the anthropomorphic representations of the gods found in poetry and religious images serves as the foundation for his abstract and unified conception of the divine. Moreover, his comments on the limitation of human knowledge in B18 and B34-B35 add another dimension to his attacks on traditional religion: the gods have not communicated directly 1 I will reference every fragment of Xenophanes’ own work by using the Diels-Kranz arrangement: B followed by the number of the fragment; for testimonial fragments I will in most cases provide both the Diels-Kranz designation (A followed by the number) as well as the location within the text itself. with mortals and so humans must rely on the superior, albeit limited, methods of inquiry and autopsy. Xenophanes’ thoughts on the divine are tentative: they approximate true things (ἐοικότα τοῖς ἐτύμοισι, B35) but the clear truth (τὸ σαφές, B34) about the gods is beyond the reach of human knowledge. The focus of this thesis will then shift to the question of Xenophanes’ authority: if he rejects the possibility of communication between gods and humans, including the poetic inspiration from the Muses that Homer and Hesiod claim to have possessed, what does he offer to his audience that will persuade them to adopt his religious views over those of his allegedly inspired predecessors? In order to answer this question, I will begin my second chapter with an examination of the works of Homer and Hesiod. I will first explore the complex and overlapping relationship between gods and humans found in poems of Homer before discussing the privileged status and authority of the bard. Homer not only invokes the Muses at appropriate moments, using their authority to vouch for his accuracy, but also uses the figure of Demodicus to favorably compare the account of a divinely inspired bard with the experience of Odysseus who was actually present at the events described in the bard’s song (Od. 487-491). The conception of poetic truth is quite nuanced: although the phrase κατὰ κόσμον is used by Odysseus as an indication of the accuracy of Demodicus’ song, the term κόσμος (Homer does not use ἀληθείη or related terms in reference to poetry)2 also bears connotations of aesthetic beauty and social propriety. In Hesiod’s Theogony the Muses themselves confront the poet and explain that they are quite willing to speak plausible falsehoods as well as truth (26-28). The personal element of Hesiod’s work is an important feature of his authority; the poet can draw teachings from his own life as well as from the Muses. Finally I will discuss the world of 2 Pratt 1993, 22 2 Xenophanes and the manner in which he revises and reinvents poetic authority. While his work includes the scientific and demythologizing tendencies of Ionian philosophical thinkers, he also explicitly situates his work within the genre of Greek poems (ἀοιδάων ἦι γένος Ἑλλαδικῶν, B6) and incorporates traditional poetic elements such as epic diction, the emphasis on seemliness, and a poetic persona. His conception of truth (τὸ σαφές, B34) depends on autopsy and personal experience; although these are privileged in the contemporary inquiry-based methods of Ionian thinkers, Homer also champions sense perception as a sure source of knowledge. There is a consistent balance in the work of Xenophanes between contemporary intellectual approaches and the traditional features in which he couches his innovative ideas. His authority is not based on inspiration or any other form of divine communication, but rather he uses traditional and new approaches to establish the worth of his observations. The final chapter of my thesis will attempt to locate the innovations of Xenophanes by comparing his thoughts on the gods, truth, and authority with those of the (roughly) contemporary poets Parmenides and Pindar. The former is the alleged pupil of Xenophanes and like him adopts the language and images of epic poetry to express his own radical ideas on the nature of the gods and the universe. The latter poet consistently adopts a piously religious attitude in
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